


The Hangover

by ellissnow



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: M/M, garak and bashir's lunch dates, hangovers, julian fantasising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-11 21:36:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3333716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellissnow/pseuds/ellissnow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Doctor Bashir faces the day after the night before. There's only so much modern medicine can do for self-induced poisoning, and there's only so much sympathy you deserve when you bring your suffering on yourself, which is probably why Julian's dragged himself to lunch in the replimat like every other week, even though now he's there, he can't quite manage anything beyond feeling sorry for himself and gazing at Garak in silence...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hangover

**Author's Note:**

> Argh, I've been nervous about getting into writing DS9 (or any other Star Trek) fic, because the quality of writing (if not, sadly, the quantity) seems so very high! Everyone has such great story ideas and seems able to come up with these intriguing mysteries and convincing technical-sounding passages... Whereas I'm rather more along the lines of "oh my god I'm going to write about Quark being a scamp" and "I'm going to write about Chief O'Brien getting drunk" and "hur hur I'm going to make Julian and Garak kiss"... And most importantly, "aarrrgh how do fake science?!?!?!" 
> 
> Anyway, I couldn't resist getting my writing hat on now my partner and I are coming to the end of our DS9 rewatch, so here's my first contribution! Oh god, keep on writing everyone, I'm so obsessed with DS9 right now it's not even believable.
> 
> By the way, it's my sincere belief that Bashir and O'Brien really like to get good old-fashioned trashed like irresponsible teenagers in the 21st century, and that they do so on a semi-regular basis. This is already an ongoing theme in the few different things I've started writing for this series. Oops.
> 
> Um, I have a tumblr, just in case you're interested. I'm going to start actually putting stuff on there, honest...  
> the-ghost-of-some-toast.tumblr.com

 

 

 

 

 

Julian simply can’t concentrate today. Normally he finds everything Garak says, without exception, entirely fascinating, but he’s well aware that right now he’s just staring at the other man like an idiot, and honestly, if he were to say he’d been catching one word in ten it would probably be a gross overestimation.

It’s possible it has something to do with the fact that last night he and Miles had one of their “real booze” nights, something which they only indulge in when both of them have a day off the next day, and which therefore happens only rarely – and which Julian, at least, is not good at dealing with. The fact that he’s not vomiting and/or clutching his own skull right now is due only to the miracles of modern medicine, for which Julian is intensely and eternally grateful – but he’s still exhausted and mildly nauseous, his head feels like it’s filled with clouds and everything seems too bright… He wonders if this is how Garak’s sensitive Cardassian eyes feel in the bright station lights.

He blinks, slowly, all too tempted to leave his eyes closed once they’re there. He should say something… If only he had any idea what his friend last said to him. _Come on brain_ , he thinks to himself. _It doesn’t matter. Just say something. Anything. Just… Anything!_

But it’s already far too late to pretend he’s his usual self, and he feels so very terrible, and it’s so much _easier_ just to sit here, with his chin in his hand and his elbow propped on the table, and watch Garak sleepily. He really can’t find it in himself to do conversation, not today, but he’s never yet been too sick, or too tired, or too irresponsibly hung over, to enjoy simply looking at the charismatic man.

God, how he wants to kiss him. Not now, obviously - when he’s feeling better, when he can really enjoy it. How long he’s wanted to know what it would feel like… What he would _taste_ like…

 _Stop that, Julian_ , he tells himself as firmly as he’s able in his current sorry-for-himself state, shaking himself mentally and lifting his head from his hand to take a sip of tea. He looks away from Garak and tries to pretend he’s remotely interested in his food, but he’s gazing back across the table within seconds. The fact is, without being absorbed in conversation like they normally would be, he’s finding it hard to ignore the things he’s usually good at distracting himself from over their weekly lunches.

Garak’s smiling at him in a fond, amused way, obviously aware that his usually garrulous companion is not quite himself but as of yet letting the silence continue rather than commenting on it, and his eyes are sparkling with a teasing kind of glee, and Julian can just imagine what Miles would say if he told him that truly, he thinks Garak is beautiful, but he does… He _is_.

And god, how he fantasises about touching the ridges around the Cardassian’s eyes with the tips of his fingers, about kissing his face and his mouth. He desperately wants to put his teeth on the ridges that run down his neck, longs to press his tongue into the sweet little indentation on his forehead – that’s probably weird, he realises, Cardassians probably don’t do that, that would probably earn him disapproval, or at least bemusement (in this personal alternate universe of his where the whole situation wouldn’t already have earned him disgust, that is), but he wants to do it nonetheless – and stroke his hair and the back of his neck where the scales are so clearly outlined, and then, and then…

“Are you listening to me at all, Doctor?”

Garak’s mildly irritated voice filters through his foggy brain’s hazy fantasy, and he starts as it registers with his conscious mind, spilling some of his tea.

“Er, I… I’m…” God, he can’t lie, he has no idea what Garak’s said, wasn’t even aware Garak was talking at all… “I’m sorry, Garak, I’m a little, um, well that is, a little preoccupied today…”

“Today? On your day off?” Garak says in his usual playful tone. “Doctor, are you sure you’re quite well?”

Julian is as good as a hundred percent certain that Garak is completely aware that he’s _not_ well, and that’s it’s been caused entirely by his own bad judgement.

“Ah, well, now you mention it, I am a little under the weather…” he says lamely anyway, admitting nothing, and half expects Garak to actually laugh out loud at him, the look on his face is so exaggerated. “Oh god, I’m so sorry Garak,” he says in a defeated tone of voice after a long moment of considering whether to really try and convince him he has an actual illness and deserves sympathy and giving up, and with perfect timing, his brain, making itself useful for the first time today, presents him with a good idea that will both make it up to Garak for his deplorable condition and allow him to spend more time with the man he’s infatuated with. “Look, let’s do lunch tomorrow as well, I won’t have as much time but I promise to be better company, I…”

“Oh nonsense,” Garak interrupts him. “That is to say, I’ll happily have lunch with you tomorrow, but there’s no need for an apology. If you’re not well you’re not well.”

For the briefest of seconds, Julian is both ecstatic and irrationally guilty at the thought that Garak actually seems to have bought the pathetic attempt he’s barely even made to suggest he’s actually under the weather and not suffering from the ill effects of a monstrous amount of real Irish whiskey (and Scotch whiskey, and beer, and something hideous Miles informed him is called a Bolian Bomb, and something else besides – he could probably recall exactly what if the attempt didn’t make him feel an extra fifty percent sick). But as he stares at Garak yet again, full of embarrassment and discomfort and oh god, that ever-present yearning, the Cardassian turns on that wicked smirk, and before he knows it, he’s laughing, even though it makes the back of his head hurt.

“Oh Garak, you’ll really have to join us for real booze night one of these days!” he says, still laughing, and he kind of means it, but on second thoughts he doesn’t really, because he can only imagine what he might do if he was as drunk as he was last night in Garak’s presence.

“Oh yes, please do invite me, because you’re such a wonderful advertisement for how pleasant it is,” Garak says in his best acidic, sarcastic voice, the one that really shouldn’t turn Julian on as much as it does.

There’s silence again for a minute, and Julian stares into his cold tea, knowing perfectly well there’s a huge idiot grin on his face, despite how generally rubbish he feels, and seemingly unable to do anything about it.

“I don’t suppose you know the recipes for any secret Cardassian hangover cures, do you?” he asks after a moment. “I’ve had a hypo of my favourite one, which saved me from actually dying this morning, but I shouldn’t really give myself another until at least fifteen-hundred…”

“Hmm… Well of course, like all my recipes, it’s highly classified...” Garak said teasingly. “But you look so pathetic, my dear, that I might be able to be persuaded to share it with you…”

“…but then you’d have to kill me?”

“Mmm, quite so. What I will suggest, however, is this: we should get you into bed.”

Julian fights to keep the dopey smile on his face so that it won’t be immediately obvious that his heart rate has just been increased by about a hundred by Garak’s choice of words.

“That’s what I do when I have a hangover, anyway,” Garak’s going on, looking the perfect picture of innocence, but Garak’s choices of words are _always_ deliberate, he _must_ be teasing him… Oh god, is it as obvious as it is that he’s hung over that he’s obsessed with him? No, no, it can’t be, Garak can’t read minds, after all, and he’s never noticed before now…

“A couple of hours extra sleep, it’ll do you the world of good.”

“Yes… you’re right, of course, good idea,” he says, feeling hazy again. Garak stands up, and he stands too, rather less steadily.

“My dear doctor, it’s a miracle you made it to the replimat at all!” Garak says, because of course he’d notice how unsteady on his feet he’s feeling, because he notices everything. Well, almost everything. No, probably everything, even if he doesn’t know the explanations behind everything…

 _Focus, Julian,_ he tells himself _. Follow Garak’s suggestion, go back to bed for a bit, then you might feel like something more closely resembling intelligent life._

_We should get you into bed…_

Garak’s words echo in his mind as he hears himself saying “Lunch tomorrow?”, and he won’t analyse it too carefully, he won’t; Garak simply used words, said a perfectly reasonable thing which, even if it had some underlying innuendo or suggestion, would only be because of the man’s flirtatious nature anyway…

He has to remind himself to focus again to pay attention to Garak, who’s actually looking mildly concerned.

“Yes, yes, of course,” he’s saying. “But truly, doctor... Are you alright? I think perhaps I should walk you to your quarters. Yes, I’ll do that, come now…”

And then Garak’s hand is on his arm, and despite his protestations that it’s completely unnecessary that he be escorted back, which is clearly true - it’s only a hangover after all, and not the worst of those he’s ever had - the older man seems to have no intention of removing it.

In fact, as they leave the replimat, he would swear that Garak gives his arm a little squeeze before slipping his own arm around his elbow. And so he lets himself be walked arm-in-arm to his quarters, lets himself be held on to, lets himself be talked at even though he gives barely any responses all the way there, telling himself all the way that he won’t over analyse this later.

By the time they reach the door to his quarters and say goodbye, promising to meet again tomorrow, he’s pretty sure he won’t be able to sleep, hangover or no hangover. And he’s quite right, of course.

On the plus side, by the time he’s able to take his mind off Garak for more than about half a minute at a time, he feels almost entirely better.

 

 

 

 


End file.
